


To See and Be Seen

by Keeperkeepkipsi



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Apocalyptic Eye Stuff, Freeform, I wasn't going to write this but I am now, Other, post-160
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:40:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23597755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keeperkeepkipsi/pseuds/Keeperkeepkipsi
Summary: I know a lot of us say we would align with the Eye in the TMA verse, but what would that really mean? How would it shape my own experience of the world of the fears? These are the questions I ask myself when I'm trying to fall asleep, and sometimes the answer is a fic.
Kudos: 7





	To See and Be Seen

I thought I was invisible, sometimes, when I was a kid. Even up to a few years ago. I would say something, and no one would react. Whenever I got interrupted, no one would complain. No one seemed to realize I was trying to speak. So I learned to listen instead.

Another problem with being invisible is that it's hard to get direct answers from anyone. If my questions was even acknowledged, it was usually met with some form of, "It's none of your business!" or "Don't be so nosy." I didn't realize then the harm that people could do to each other with information. Certainly I didn't intend to do any harm. I just wanted to know. And if they wouldn't tell me, I just had to listen while they told someone else. They never noticed, anyway. I wasn't doing any harm.

I wonder, would they have seen me if I had?

They all see me now, I think. At least, when I sit on the porch and people rush by, in cars or on their own two feet, they always spare me a glance. I watch them back. I see them leaving and I wonder where they're going. Some of them look at me like I'm responsible for the heavy gaze they feel on their backs, but that's only because they're afraid to look up. I'm not.

The truth is everywhere now, including in the sky. New stars wink down at me, and I look at each in turn. Every one of them sees me, in a way no one ever has. I am no longer invisible, and I cannot ever be invisible again. I will always be seen.

I will always be seen.

Those eyes know me, down to the one desire I have held dear for so long. The eyes know me better than I have ever known myself, than I will ever know myself, because one cannot be known only from the inside. But they know me from the outside and the inside. I want to know what they see, what they know of me, but they will not tell me. Maybe I just have to wait. Maybe they'll tell someone else. Maybe I can listen.

They tell me everything else. If I look long enough at a deep, glossy pupil, it becomes a mirror. I see what it sees. I see roads overrun with roaches and rats, two or three or ten high. I see mountains risen from plains and the people whose homes are now thousands of feet in the air. I see spiders everywhere. If I look just long enough at just the right eye, I can even see myself, reflected, frozen in watching the horrors of this new world as if they can't reach me too. I know they can. The eyes tell me so, even if I didn't know already. I'm less sure now what I already knew before they told me. Either way, I know.

One of the cars stops in the road. I have yet to see someone stop running, but then everyone must be running somewhere. I stand to look at them, to tell them that they can keep running, that stopping won't help them. Neither will running, of course, but they don't know that yet. The car door opens. I feel a gaze on me that does not come from above. I set my gaze on them.

I see her.

I recognize her immediately. Her name rushes into my mind, along with her life. Before we met, when we lived together, the ways she used information against me, how she hurt me and how much she liked it. I see how long she'd been running. I see her eyes as she realizes the weight of mine. Her gaze could never compare to that of the new stars. She has nothing to hurt me with now.

I know her fate a moment before flames erupt around her. I flinch, she screams. It is one thing to know that something hurts. It is another to hear the pain. I even feel a phantom echo of it on my skin, the pain of watching. I do not look away. I'm not sure whether or not I want to. I watch as she becomes quiet with lungs filled with smoke, until she turns to ash before me. I feel as if my feet are tied to the porch step below me until the very last wisp of smoke dissipates.

I've known for days what horrors exist in the world now. But knowing and seeing are different things. And I can only truly see with my own eyes.

I begin moving for the first time since the change. I am not running, not like the others. Just moving. Just walking down the street. Just finding a new porch to sit on.

There are many places where I can look at the sky.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy season 5!


End file.
